"Richard A" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lupoff Richard A)

The scenic beauty of the region was incomparable. There were mountains,
lakes, glaciers to shame New Zealand or Switzerland or Tibet. Forests were
planted and grew rapidly and fecundly. Imported wildlife throve. The few
native species -- penguins, amphibious mammals, a strange variety of bird
newly discovered and named the tekili-li -- were protected.
The new country was called Yisroel Diaspora. Its leader under the feminist
world order was Tanit Shadrapha. This name means The Healer Ishtar.
The feminist world order promoted scientific research, largely from bases
in Yisroel Diaspora. Space exploration, long abandoned except for the
development of orbiting weapons systems, was resumed. Bases were
established on the planet Mars and among the asteroids. A crewed ship
orbited Venus making close observations and sending robot monitors and
samplers to the surface of the planet. Venus was found to be a worthless
and inhospitable piece of real estate.
A landing was attempted on the surface of Mercury. The expedition was an
ambitious undertaking. The lander was to touch down just on the dark side
of the planetary terminator, thence to be carried into the night. During
the Mencurian night it would burrow beneath the surface. By the time the
terminator was reached and the ship entered the day side, it would be
safely entombed and would, in effect, estivate through the searing
Mercurian day.
Something went wrong. The ship landed. Excavation work began. Then, almost
as if the planet were eating the ship and its crew, all disappeared
beneath the surface. They were never contacted again.

On Earth the dominant art form was something called cheomnaury. This
involved a blending and transformation of sensory inputs. The most favored
sensory combinations were sound, odor and flavor. The greatest
cheomnaunist in the world was an Ecuadorian dwarf who found her way to the
capital of Hai Brasil and obtained personal audience with Astrud do
Muiscos herself.
The dwarf began her performance with a presentation involving the sound of
surf pounding upon the rocks of the Pacific Coast where Andean granite
plunges hundreds of feet into icy foam. This was blended with the warm,
rich odor of roasting chestnuts over a charcoal brazier. To this the dwarf
added the subtle flavor of ground coriander.
Astrud do Muiscos was pleased.
The dwarf proceeded to offer a blend of a synthesized voice such as might
come from a living volcano, to which she added a scent of natron and olive
unknown outside the secret embalming chamber of Egyptian temples six
thousand years old, to which was added the flavor of the spithrus locusta.
The spithrus locusta is a marine arachnid the flavor of whose meat is to
that of ordinary broiled lobster, as is that of the lobster to a common
crab louse.
Astrud do Muiscos was very pleased.
The triumph of the dwarf was a combination of white noise in the ordinary
range of audibility with subtle sub- and supersonics, mixed with the odor
of a quintessential coca extract and the flavor of concentrated formic
acid drawn from Amazonian driver ants.
Astrud do Muiscos named the dwarf her successor to the throne of Hai